


happy for any reason

by CampionSayn



Series: anything flesh, and not smoke [1]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Eventual Happy Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, I'm using the neutral relationship tags because I don't know what I'm doing, M/M, Post-Season 2, and technically nobody gets sexy times, world building of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 16:17:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12657063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: The facts, statements and important events of a fledgling demon left on his own for a hundred years, or: immortality sounds great until you realize certain things while making it up as you go.





	happy for any reason

_What's the point of learning anything, if you're going to be with different people each time?"_  
"You're NOT going to be with different people."  
-Dead Again

* * *

Three months is about as long as Ciel could bare to keep Sebastian with him in their joint solitude, their contract becoming a heavy chain around both their necks as the smaller realized the actuality of his situation through and through, and the taller-older-stronger- _better_ of them slowly starved and, perhaps on his bad days, contemplated revenge.

Sebastian wasn't really himself as Ciel had come to know him, anymore. He wasn't tremendously unkind, exactly, but he wasn't obliged or inclined to be even mischievous or cleverly teasing as he used to be. He fulfilled his duties as an aesthetically pleasing butler and answered any questions Ciel had, but it was almost mechanical and without any feeling of any sort whatsoever. Unless Ciel made a show  _(a show of all things; and wasn't that just so depressing)_  of being especially haughty or insufferable to get a rise out of the other; then Sebastian allowed himself a moment of blazing red eyes and teeth grit so tightly Ciel could read plainly that he was trying to rope in the urge to crush Ciel's throat in one hand.

So...

He had them travel to the French countryside, vast and full of fields turning yellow with the season of fall and the trees as far as the eyes could see a great black and green collection of giants that could have housed the same families of birds for a thousand years. Their carriage was left at a small village and put up for sale, with the two fine thoroughbreds fetching as good a price as they were likely to get from peasants that could barely afford to buy nails when the fences keeping their livestock penned needed mending.

Ciel also bought a glass pendant that was meant to carry precious stones and gold scoured from the nearby river.

With the shade of the trees covering them and nightfall but mere hours away, Ciel stated as kindly as he could with a voice that still felt cold and pointless to himself in the weeks that had fallen behind them, him facing the wilderness with civilization and Sebastian to his back and his inevitable misery set upon his shoulders like hands no more or less stifling than Sebastian's before this whole mess, "I can't give you what I owe you Sebastian; I'm sorry for that."

The butler didn't respond to that, mouth still shut tight, but he hadn't been asked a question, so he wasn't required to say anything. As he hadn't been obliged to do in weeks.

Which was not to say that Sebastian's curiosity wasn't brought to a head when Ciel had brought them to the middle of nowhere and seemed to grow more and more sullen and quiet as they trekked further and further away from people and were left only with each other. He just was unsure of what to think, even as Ciel continued, not looking at him and his head and shoulders seemed to droop with each word.

"...The best I can do is give you what I  _can_."

Sebastian actually didn't like that last word out of his young master's mouth; like he'd just woken up from a nightmare back at the manor before Sebastian had the chance to wake him, was confused at where he was and couldn't even  _breathe_.

The elder didn't even get the chance to question Ciel's words, though; Sebastian standing stock still as his master still remained turned away from him, removed his eye-patch with his bare hands, dark fingernails seeming to quiver a little at untying the knot and then, wonder of wonders, brought his hand up as steady as he was able and removed the eye holding their contract in place.

Sebastian felt the contract mark on his hand do something it had never done in the entirety of his life in the removal of the other end of the bargain, though it was rather difficult to describe in that exact moment. He'd think on it later, for a long time, but... The closest he could come to describing the feeling was that when the contract was intact, his hand felt like it was in a pool of pleasantly warm running water and when Ciel ended it, it was as if the water had dried to an occasional dripping of flowing cold tap water.

There wasn't much blood coating Ciel's fingers, not enough to leave but a few smudges on the little pendant he'd brought along, tucking the eye into the confines and corking it shut, finally turning around and he walked over on slightly wobbling legs, his still shaking hand passing the offering over to Sebastian. Like he was handing over severance to a loyal employee who deserved to remain in service but simply couldn't be kept, because there was nothing for him to do and all the funding had dried up.

Ciel remained with one eye looking down at the mud they didn't have any real choice but to stand in, the other eye shut tight to prevent the small amount of blood from secreting down his face; he preferred it to clot tacky to keep his lids closed, "You can do as you like, now. Stay or go or...whatever you please."

He didn't see, so much as feel, Sebastian take his offering, possibly tuck it into his fine, pressed black coat pocket... and then just sort of  _fade_ , like ashes falling away from a fireplace in a house that was rotting and open to the elements.

He waited a good ten minutes, foolishly thinking,  _just maybe_ , that Sebastian might change his mind. Maybe he'd hate the thought of going back to being bored again. Maybe he'd...felt something after all the years in Ciel's service.

After the ten minutes were over, Ciel walked into the woods and tried to pretend it didn't hurt.

_(Ciel wouldn't see him again for over a hundred years, would have to make his way into the world with seclusion and loneliness draped over him like he felt he deserved.)_

* * *

He didn't go seeking prey, which in and of itself was like announcing to all demonkind that he was weak; like telling the Reapers that he was less trouble than a stray alley cat; like telling himself that he would keep his humanity any way he could.

He found, with his hunger, came a curiosity in what he could eat barring human souls and thought to himself,  _'There are other living things. There are animals of lesser thought than cats and crows and dogs. There are trees and flowers. Anything is worth a try, isn't it?'_

The instinct in taking a soul came more readily than he ever dreamed it could when he found himself near the very heart of that forest he'd left Sebastian at the edge of, standing before a tree that was, perhaps, the height of his old townhouse and over three centuries old. He brought himself within a hair's breadth of the bark, hand flat against it, and breathed in what must have been the life force that demons, Reapers and angels called a soul.

It probably didn't taste anything like a human would, and it gave him a comfort that he probably never would have felt otherwise. It reminded him of when he was, maybe, no more than five years old and there had been a three day blizzard that ended up coating everything on the manor grounds. He'd taken a handful of the snow that was perched on the head of one of the marble statues decorating the fountain and stuffed it inside his mouth.

Fresh, clean snow was what older trees tasted like, Ciel would later learn as he continued onward away and away from England and from memories and emotions that made him ball his fists and curse Alois Trancy and every damn one of the wretched demons that were a part of leaving him like this.

Ciel didn't really notice when his shoes had fallen entirely off of his person, but when he entered into Germany, he noticed the pine needles of the forest tickling his toes and that his clothes were basically in shambles.

It had been over a year since Sebastian was free and Ciel had found he liked the taste of trees older than a hundred or younger than fifty years. Eating the souls of shrubs or flowers or insects was a level of pointless that he could do without, despite getting some sick satisfaction in ending the lives of spiders. He could eat the souls of cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, horses, grouse, pheasants; deer if he could gather enough energy to run after them. Weasels were less than satisfying; rabbits tasted too much like fear to be enjoyed at any capacity. The  _one_  time he attempted to eat a goose, he spent the next three hours retching at the edge of a river and swore he'd never try again, nor with any other water fowl. Fish weren't bad, but a little bland.

Stealing clothing was something that he thought he'd never have to do as an Earl, but as a simple, lowly traveler with nothing and nobody to lend him a hand and no real ability as a demon, there were times where he had little choice. He mostly refrained from stealing shoes because even when he felt hard, jagged rock beneath his feet at the edge of a craggy cliff or slid against pure white ice over the tops of lakes, he didn't feel pain in the old familiar way he once did. And he had touched the soles of his feet and noted that they were probably more solid than some leather he'd bought for a present for Lizzie when she had started taking her sword lessons far more seriously after Campania. His toenails weren't quite like that of the big black dog he'd once owned before the fire, but they did well enough when he slipped or tripped.

He stuck to large coats, pants and a shirt here and there when the weather was fierce in the small event he would wander close enough to civilization to care for propriety.

This decision came up sometime around the end of the first World War, after Ciel had visited Belgium, the border of Germany and Vimy, France; eyeing actual Canadians for the first time  _(he didn't have any desire to travel near North America at that point; it would require actually being in a large shipping vessel with others and he hadn't figured out certain tricks he could do to move souls around to have at hand until much later, so long travels that couldn't happen on foot were out of the question)_  and realized change was happening in the world and propriety was...well...for lack of a better term,  _subjective_. It also made him realize that Bard was practically a monk compared to some of the yanks Ciel observed as time marched on.

The train systems, as they evolved, got his attention to return to seeing people again, some time in his forty-fifth year; out by Germany as the dislike of Jews began escalating. They became more to look at and, if he felt so inclined after devouring the souls of moose or large elk, he would often find his steps rambling along the ditches that moved with the tracks. It allowed him to glance inside the boxcars when trains blew past the forests he occupied, gave him a chance to spot children smaller than himself, the mothers that told them not to raise their voices in enclosed spaces, the fathers and strangers passing from one cart to another, often in search of something to make the time pass more quickly, more smoothly and with more spiced interest in the women that weren't married.

It was a shame sometimes when he spotted married men on the outside of the carts, pressed to the railing and letting some foolish, tipsy woman treat herself to his cock without thinking of the consequences after a few glasses of poorly made wine or cheap champagne.

It wasn't surprising, but shame and surprise are not that mutually exclusive, Ciel was finding more and more.

* * *

He could be injured, he discovered, and disliked tremendously when he found himself outside a little village that was being occupied by the Nazi regime. A few brash young soldiers wandering into the woods to take a piss being started by the sight of some scrawny teenage boy, no shoes on his feet, a big green jacket taken off a corpse some weeks prior  _(it was soft and not as garish as some of the ones worn up north; and at least it fit him)_  and spooking the hell out of them when he seemed to appear out of nowhere trying to catch a squirrel  _(it had been a month since his last meal in the middle of fucking winter; he wasn't **choosy**  at that point since the trees in the immediate area had essence that tasted of earwax more than anything else)_.

The bullet to the head with one of them calling him something along the lines of  _"gypsy trash"_  was a shock, but the fact that his body actually  _registered_  being struck and the coursing feeling that settled in after the wound bled and then healed in rapid succession was not unlike being stung by a yellowjacket.

Suffice it to say they each got to scream  _once_  as he removed the bullet from where it fell out and onto his jacket, his eye shifting to red and his burst of speed not even registering as he killed the both of them. And then followed up by waiting until nightfall just to saunter into the occupied village and slaughter the rest of their deployment, be they sleeping or patrolling the area; either was convenient enough.

The aftermath was as followed: he could fully appreciate the shit Sebastian put up with for him, the village residents assumed that they had been sent a sort of dark miracle which...kind of, sort of...gave him a little pick-me-up in energy, and cleaning blood out of anything was extremely difficult.

As the war took a full swing throughout the world and along the continents, Ciel found he had no trouble avoiding it when he wanted and joined in killing whoever he found more annoying than others, especially those many humans that made the mistake of thinking they were better than others based on the almost uncomprehending lunacy of a lunatic with a higher vocabulary.

In the killing of many officers half his age for simply existing, tearing into flesh and bone as easily as he would the coats implications of skulls and crossbones he found unsatisfying if he had to wear them...he couldn't help wondering...

Did Sebastian find himself in a position of high power during this time? Did other demons take delight in so many more humans than normal lighting up hoards of other humans in ovens, shooting them in the street, branding them and making them so much more appealing and damn-fucking-bloody easy to lure into a contract in desperation? Did they choose sides to make one army or the other stronger in the hopes that they could beat the Reapers to the veritable banquet set before them?

Ciel took to wearing High Rise Stirrup leggings during this time and kept that green jacket well into the 1980's; the leggings making it easier to dropkick brutal, cruel fascists and Nazi sympathizers; his black toenails grown like talons and strong enough to rip out the jaw, throat and intestines of these bastards as easy as crushing an ant underfoot. He wasn't sentimental in the traditional sense, but he found himself fighting for England and, on occasion, crossing paths with old familiar faces he found the need to justify and explain himself to...as much as he was able.

The Reapers had been worn down to a thread, Grell's red diminished like old blood on a handkerchief floundering at the bottom of a river. Ronald seemed somehow lacking his usual bravado and friendliness; dust and debris coating his hair and spectacles no matter how much he took to dusting himself off.

They came upon Ciel demolishing an entire battalion outside the sights of the well used roads, his green coat almost immaculate despite his hands soggy with the red Grell worshiped like a religion. They did not speak until he finished, shaking a little, and that coat of his making him seem like a ten year old with a blanket draped over him but unable to keep him warm.

"You're still so tiny," Grell had stated absently, beginning her duty and collecting and recording reels and reels from the carcasses afoot when it became so glaringly obvious that Ciel had no inclination in eating any souls upon the grounds whatsoever, "I would have thought all this food would mean you'd grow at least a few inches."

"I don't eat human souls," Ciel frowned, voice hoarse from not being used often in years and the one eye alighting a blushing red that was almost pink from his lack of energy and lack of appetite recently, "And even if I did, I wouldn't lay a finger on the souls of these heartless drones."

They had both laughed, thinking him speaking in jest, until Knox took note that Ciel didn't blink and didn't rise to meet their laughter with his own smile.

And he hadn't grown since he'd last been seen; not in height and his bones seemed to be almost like tangible glowing implants beneath his stretched skin.

He'd left before the blonde could ask more questions, heading for somewhere colder, possibly in the Netherlands, where he wouldn't be bothered for a while and could simply eat cattle and trees and sit in the fields to watch spring come in without his twitching so much as a muscle for a season.

* * *

It was not his intent to wander into a haven where there was an entrance into hell in a crack where the rivers branched out into the see like darkness through a spider web. Other demons coming and going through this fixed area of magic and illusion and out of sight from humans so they could congregate and rest before seeking out more human souls to devour.

Ciel got about as far as he was able, feet rigid and steadfast before the illusion might have given way and he might have seen Hell proper for the first time.

He was faintly aware that there were those he couldn't see or hear or smell that were probably extending their heightened senses in his direction and  _that_ , more than anything, frightened him and sent him digging up what not-quite-human qualities he had so he could turn and run faster than he ever had before; though not as fast as he would ever be able as he got better and better at being himself  _(for lack of a better term)._

When he was far enough away, had crossed back into Belgium and made his way back to the fucking ocean so he could gather his wits and swim back across the English Channel, he realized he should probably take great care to avoid those places in the future.

Every demon he'd ever met aside from Sebastian had wanted desperately to make an attempt on him. He would not let any others try and charm him or come near him. It would do him no good and he'd never be able to defend himself if they decided he was worth thrill-seeking of the less than savory kind.

_(He was right.)_

* * *

The world was wide enough, and with time and so much more practice than he would have dreamed he'd ever have the patience for, he found he'd visited almost all the continents in his wanderings, dining on different animals he'd never thought he'd see. Sleeping in places more beautiful than he'd ever imagined there being. Learning to run with wild wolves when he became too lonely; help build the nests of crows and ravens when he was looking for a laugh; shield stray cats from rainfall in alleys if he wanted to hold something with a pulse.

Sometimes he wouldn't eat the trees he'd been looking forward to devouring after hearing how long they'd been alive and just standing or sitting beneath them with the vague thought they they were too good to be nothing but energy to feed off. If he believed in God, he'd have given many a compliment for their splendor.

Since he didn't believe in God, though, he settled for enjoying the view and settled often enough for trees under a thousand years; the silver birch and maple trees in the ancient forests of Poland and Belarus made up at least forty years worth of meals for him, and made it more than possible for him to go without other souls unless he just wanted to nibble on something.

Also, and this was a shock, he realized that he could enjoy real human food, of course he could. He just had to take the essence out of the ingredients, save them in little jars or bottles like the collection for a spice rack, and swallow the energy before getting on with the actual cooked meal.

He almost wanted to track down Sebastian and ask if the other had ever tried the technique. But, no... he just couldn't.

* * *

After crossing back into England again and on a more permanent basis so he could gather a territory to defend and actually have something to  _do_ , he set to work making a sort of nest for himself out of a forgotten not-quite manor in the woods he'd bought from a senile neurotic that was on his last legs and died a week later in his family's other estate. He'd used funds he'd started saving in a Swiss account with all the loot he'd amassed from the dead he'd littered the battlefields with, and taken his newfound patience to rebuild and spend his days planting saplings around in the some-hundred acres of wood surrounding the property.

He celebrated his one-hundredth birthday by going out to buy a replacement for his tattered green coat, some black boots so he could walk around without attracting as much attention to himself, and a pair of records by Paul McCartney and ABBA.

_(Ciel was a little embarrassed he'd managed to to run into the Undertaker as the sun set and he was making his way home on one of the back roads away from London somehow. The man seemed his usual self, wittering on about creepy things and nonsense, right up and until Ciel bid him a good evening._

_Before he'd tried to bolt away with the speed Ciel was growing to appreciate for himself in leaps and bounds, the retired Reaper had asked him quite soberly if he'd been alright by himself._

_"I heard you set Sebastian free. I didn't believe it, but you don't have that eye anymore and...I suppose if any human was going to surprise me, little Phantomhive, it would be you. So, are you well?"_

_Ciel, in the past, would have scoffed and stated rather coldly that of course he was alright; he was a hundred years old and didn't have a wrinkle, pock-mark or trace of sagging skin anywhere._

_Ciel, at the present before the Undertaker, took pause, mulling over an answer that wouldn't be a lie since that was beyond him now, aware as always that he probably looked so very small and vulnerable in the coat he could not help but buy from the adult section of the boutique in the darkest green he could find, and the hair that he'd let grow out to try and hide his empty eye socket._

_He settled, after a moment, for shrugging and pretending he didn't care, "As well as can be expected.")_

* * *

An interesting fact of life for demons that he never asked about when he was an Earl and Sebastian had never brought to light even for the sake of teasing him, was that there was a mating season they had to go through once every twenty human years.

It wasn't for breeding as far as Ciel could tell, given that he never, ever saw any demons smaller or even younger than himself. It was more for the sake of releasing pent up tension and energy and establishing rank in fighting for the better bed partner while beating down whoever stood in the way of having the best sex. Very much like animals of the most feral variety and very macho; always with blood and the promise of something being put in the winner's mouth: be it sexual or be it meat.

Ciel really wouldn't even have known about it, having still the form of a teenager and very little interest in that sort of thing to begin with, had it not been for him taking a scenic route back to his forest, taking the long way along the vast countryside so he could observe the new spring grass and check on some saplings he'd planted the year before and observe some of the animal life preparing to depart from their winter activities.

_(As a human he knew he never would have cared for noticing and watching the small details of birth, life and death. As a demon, he never grew tired of it.)_

He'd felt the presence from behind long before he thought to address it as he finally stopped along a small river that was more like a creek he could just take five steps to cross, and turned with one blazing red eye, face like stone and spine straight to look upon who was following him.

The other demons looked familiar, and after seeing them out of the shadows and standing yards away with a smell radiating from their forms like musk and cooked meat, Ciel absently realized that the first suitors to stand before him were former servants of Alois.

Ciel supposes that at that time he was exceptionally lucky. Those triplets had recalled what Hannah had done to Ciel, and were unsure if that meant he was under her protection. They did not want to run the risk of crossing a being like Hannah, be she in the mortal realm or still recovering from her suicide somewhere in the bowels of Hell.

Or maybe they heard about what Sebastian did to Claude and assumed the other was nearby.

Ciel didn't actually say whether any of those theories were true, and they left. They left with looks Ciel had lived long enough to name and didn't like at all  _(Thompson was smiling and still eyeing the petite boy even as he took leave first; Timber following after, but with something like cold repulsion, not so different from a beekeeper finding a hornet in their honeycomb; Canterbury, though, he stood still and just looked at Ciel with something akin to curiosity, head tilted and letting his eyes focus on the size of the former Earl before both of his brothers called after him)._

Looking back, Ciel still didn't know  _how_  he could tell them apart. Which might have been yet another demonic trait he didn't understand, and it... scared him. A little.

But that didn't matter as the days progressed and he had to find a place to hide. Demons that  _didn't_  know who he was were more than happy to mark him as an easy target and out and out get into his pants if he just tried to walk ( _run_ ) away or ignore them or fight them.

He could  _not_  fight them; he was skinny as a stick and didn't enjoy getting his bones snapped.

He could not  _ignore_  them; that was evidently seen as a kind of challenge that either two demons fight  _for_  him or one  _proves_  a romp would be worth his while.

And the word 'no' meant absolutely nothing during this time, so run and hide it was. He had managed to get fast over the years, at least, and was small enough with a wicked brain that, if he had a head start, could keep him far out of harm's way until the danger passed.

His pride suffered, of course; but if it was a choice between repetitive, probably  _excruciating_  rape and taking a hit to his pride by running at the first sight of another demon, he'd take the latter.

Hiding in his nest was out of the question, most unfortunately, as that despite the fact it had all the comfort he felt he needed from one time to another, the place was still old and that meant it wouldn't take more than a half-hearted kick to bring down a window, a door, the goddamn roof. He would eventually make some adjustments to amend that, but thinking about property damage took second place to his own bodily harm.

But perhaps the most important thing he learned during his first season was: incubus and succubi  _did_  exist; both types were so dead-set on him when they realized he was a virgin that they were more than willing to follow him for hours on end; and if he ever wanted any peace during this time, staying with Undertaker or near the Reaper's Library was his best bet of safety.

_(Undertaker was amused at first, but then he told Ciel that the mating season lasted three whole months and got a funny look on his face when Ciel sighed in defeat and asked if he had any spare suture kits lying around; he'd had to bodily throw himself from high roofed buildings a few times to avoid grabby, clawed hands much stronger than even a bear and sometimes his healing took longer when he hadn't eaten in a while._

_The former Reaper had helped him sew up after that, and offered Ciel lodging in exchange for a hand in cleaning, "You must have learned something from that butler of yours, after all. Even if it wasn't how to weave a dirty limerick.")_

He survived that season with the reality of the fact that Undertaker was not a complete and total psycho; he could be somewhat pleasant and tolerable and Ciel could be tempted to visit his shop when he got bored with just the upkeep of his territory and looking for more palatable souls to eat.

_(Grell was amused even more-so than the keeper of dead bodies the following mating season when Ciel ran right into her apartment, not knowing it was hers and her mere presence scared away the...imps, maybe...that had been following him since three days prior. He'd crashed into her coffee table, scattering sheets of paper she'd brought home to finish as per orders from William and, after she'd spooked his attempted assailants, turned to find him tidying up, organizing the work by category and he'd found her looking at him with realization dawning in her scary green-gold eyes._

_She realized Ciel was actually useful for something, even without Sebas-chan hanging around him anymore._

_"You can do paperwork? ...Oh, my god, that's right, now I remember; your handwriting is completely legible...YES, you can stay with me until the end of the month!"_

_Ciel did not appreciate the hugging and the flirting and the incessant questions about his current, so-called life throughout the weeks that followed, but then he realized he could bribe Grell into leaving him alone to do any other assigned tasks. Such as making her new dresses to fit the latest fashions, touch up old outfits, and tell her which ingredients to pick up so Ciel could make her a drug cocktail that would ease her into more feminine features for when she finally got that_ _operation._

_He wouldn't tell her he could actually **perform**  that operation for her unless he got exceptionally desperate with no other options whatsoever. He hadn't even wanted to stay with her to begin with; if he inverted her penis, removed her testicles and gave her breasts that bounced, he had a feeling she'd never let him leave. And while companionship could be nice, he didn't actually like grovelling and knew if she said she "owed him one" it would mean a contract._

_If he was ever going to form a contract for any reason, it was **not**  going to be with Grell.)_

* * *

Life went on and, as the 1980's were coming to a close, Ciel realized that he could bare being a demon. He could even bare being a pariah among demons in being the  _first_  and  ** _only_  **one not born from Hell by Lucifer waving his hand or conjuring him from dust, or whatever other bullshit he heard through the snickering of Reapers who didn't notice him or Undertaker thinking he'd enlighten him while stuck in one place for three months, and knowing all things of importance in his creation.

But he couldn't bare being so utterly alone.

The shock of it hit him in a most amusing place, under the bows of a pair of alder trees along the reach of a river after he'd just taken the vital essence he'd need after a year of nothing; he'd looked into the water at his reflection and said aloud to himself without thought and without purpose.

"I wonder how Sebastian's doing..."

The air in his lungs he could not help but feel like an empty shell of himself without filling him up, left him like the smoke of a candle as he stilled; hearing the words leave his own lips like finally ripping off a bandage he'd forgotten for so long that it took off a layer of skin and bled him more than it had the first time.

Saying his name aloud for the first time in over a century was probably what his body needed, given that he continued to sit in stillness under the trees, one still perfect in health and strength that he could not devour and the other already losing its leaves left over from the disease that had been killing it; losing its essence simply quickening the pace of decay.

The tears falling from him seemed to compliment that aesthetic, clear salt water and deep red blood on their respective sides.

And the laughter like dying.

* * *

He found that, while he had no demonic form, he was not without the ability to change out of the body of the skinny mess of a being he'd walked around as for a near century. An accident, this was, in finding out, though not unappreciated, given that it gave him a new perspective and ability to wander around and notice things he still hadn't in his old age.

He'd had a feeling that Sebastian had been a crow when he wasn't walking around on two legs pretending to be a human, and Claude was a  _(gigantic, hideous)_  spider that tricked children for the fun of it; Ciel had seen other demons with other forms while avoiding them in the mating season as well: birds were more prevalent, usually predators of a higher class than the ones that were more inclined towards insects. He assumed in his first season that it was probably a class issue; the older and more powerful demons were feathered and probably some of the original fallen angels and the insects were most probably born in Hell.

He'd confirmed his hypothesis with Undertaker after cleaning out the cackling idiot's mausoleum, but was also granted knowledge he hadn't thought on, "All demons can fly, too. The insect and arachnids less so than demons like Sebastian, but still."

" _I_  can't fly."

"No, but you're not a proper demon, either. You'll probably come up with something you can do, eventually, but you're still young, so it might take a while until you know what that something is. Every demon develops a kind of defense mechanism to avoid the Reapers and angels. Maybe if you ever find an animal that calls out as your familiar..."

"Isn't that a fairy tale in connotation to witches?"

"Ha!" Undertaker clapped his hands, fingernails at least three shades darker than Ciel's had grown to be once he took up eating vegetable and animal essence  _(once black as ebony, most recently a kind of grey making an attempt at mirroring the shade under a tree surrounded by the snow in winter)_  and a lot sharper, too, "No, no, little Earl, it's quite common among demons to have animal familiars to either carry out their orders or to provide a sort of companionship so they don't go insane. Quite frankly, I'm surprised you haven't taken some up since you're positively  _cuddly_  compared to every other demon."

Once his three months of hiding were over, he considered and tested his appreciation for the creatures that might see him as a more powerful being they didn't have a problem taking orders from.

It didn't quite work that way, it seemed, as instead of communicating with the animals he came upon afterwards, he found himself acknowledging a place in himself he hadn't noticed. A warm niche of something like what he'd call magic somewhere below his throat and along his clavicle had lit up like a candle in a jack-o-lantern and he'd found himself on the ground on four legs with a long fuzzy tail trailing behind him and the little magpies he'd been trying to communicate with screeching and flapping away.

A little black fox.

As he grew accustomed to the form and the ability to change in and out of it, he found that with a little  _more_  effort at pulling at the magic he'd found, and thinking hard enough, he could push it a little farther than just the form he'd found by accident.

A dog to wander around in London and keep his ear to the ground, find illegal dealings so he wouldn't be bored and keep the place tolerable to his more humanistic standards  _(not so different from when he was Watchdog to the Queen)_. A wolf to tear out the throat of men he deemed not worth allowing to exist  _(drug runners that tortured informants that went to the police; sex traffickers that specialized in small children; pedophiles that broadcast their dealings on this thing called the internet; serial killers that made Grell look sane; those sorts of things)_. A coyote when he was traveling through some forests known for illegal hunting so he could locate the areas poachers enjoyed and then leaving a tip at ranger stations.

But Ciel preferred the fox and the dog forms. The fox suited his personality and his lifestyle of staying on the outskirts, an outsider forever looking in. The dog because, sometimes, it made him feel good to run and run and run until he felt like himself again.

* * *

_Pity, sentiment,_  and  _warmth._ These were the things that separated Ciel entirely from other demons, from the Reapers, from even quite a few human beings.

These were what lead Sebastian, at his own pace and hesitation and inability to understand exactly what he was experiencing internally, back to Ciel.

He wouldn't pretend that when Ciel ripped out his own eye and handed it over like a present it was as though Sebastian had been given a pardon to a life of misery in servitude to a squalling creature half his size, far less than what Sebastian was. He wouldn't pretend that when he gathered his human form and flew away like black mist and formed wings to take him far away from England, it wasn't especially thrilling and left him jittery, but...

After he'd found some easy prey to devour  _(humans that had lost children or the like to disease and were willing to give up their lives if it meant the others they cared for could be saved; countrymen that wanted to experience one night of absolute pleasure before dying; cheat whores who called for a little fake sympathy before they expired in the gutter)_  and found himself thinking on what to do and where to go next, he realized he hadn't gotten rid of the pendant with the floating eye hanging around his neck. The blood from the flesh had settled in the bottom of the glass and the little seal still within the iris had faded, but not enough to make finding the lines impossible.

He didn't intend to drop into a hospital in Whales to fill the pendant with saline before heading out and over to Spain (bless the southern continents, they felt so much more inviting after three years in fucking England) but he did and just...never felt like tossing the thing.

He actually ended up decorating the pendant and chain as his life went on, avoiding England for a good fifty or sixty years and spending the majority of his time bouncing between Madagascar, India and Brazil. The pendant, by the 1970's, ended up with small net bindings to keep it protected in the event it fell off of him, shortened the cord to make it more like a double-tired choker with beaded braiding, inset with snowflake obsidian stones. When it wasn't around his neck, it was wrapped around his wrist.

It was strange. Before being bound in contract to Ciel Phantomhive, he was never inclined to keeping material possessions as greed was not the primary sin he basked in, nor was it especially pretty to look at, even with the decorative pieces added on throughout the years. It wasn't actually pleasant being around it either, since every time he looked at the eye  _(fading, fading, color draining out of it, but the eye itself as healthy as could be since it was not mortal flesh and he made a point to keep the fluid inside fresh and clean)_  he thought of his time as a butler and all that entailed. It wasn't as unpleasant to linger on those thoughts as the decades neared a century and it hit him, after introducing himself to yet another contractor, that he had been introducing himself as Sebastian Michaelis on automatic every single time he was asked his name.

As that particular thought crossed his mind, and that contract ended  _(petty, petty, unpleasant, disgusting little worm of a man who just wanted to sleep with the woman of his dreams just once and didn't even register Sebastian snapping his neck and ripping his soul out the next morning to leave at the woman's side in bed with an ambulance having been called to see to here internal injuries)_  he had been on his way to Ireland and found the saline in the pendant turned a deep scarlet and the contract symbol giving a faint glow for about thirty minutes.

He'd stood just outside the Lodi Gardens of New Delhi, not too far away from a tomb that he'd actually seen built for a Shah and realized that... his Bocchan was not dead, had been alone for a hundred years and he had left him all alone as a tiny little newborn demon, without a  _word_ , when the boy had actually  ** _given him his freedom_**.

Sebastian didn't move while the eye was bleeding from nothing, the color that had been faded slowly settling back into the iris, and then he'd promptly found a gutter to vomit into.

It wasn't a big loss, that particular soul had tasted as vile and bland as he'd thought it was and ejecting it from his belly seemed a relief more than anything.

After he was done and wiped the saliva from the corners of his mouth, he didn't even hesitate to change the direction of his next venture.

"Very well, London then."

* * *

It is difficult, still and always, to find one person among millions in the human world. Demons too, though Ciel was not quite both or either, and Sebastian found himself on the eve of the newest millennia with hundreds of the humans of London skittering around like idiots in happiness or insane ramblings, down on his spirits.

There was a very large clock somewhere clicking to midnight, five minutes until the chimes rang out to be followed by cheers and screaming ( _respectively_ ) and he found himself in the company of someone he hadn't been looking for, but was in no mood to chase off while he gathered his wits and find his feet.

"Well, well, Bassy, didn't think I'd see you again in the next hundred years. Here to see the humans have a freak-out over their computers not blowing themselves up, or here to try your luck with some desperate men?"

"...You have breasts."

Grell squealed rather loudly at the deadpan statement, spinning around a couple times and waving hands in front of her face to stop the rose blush adorning her face. The dress she was wearing to attract the attention of either Will or Ronald before the hour's end showed off her flat stomach and her shaved, tights adorned legs and the scary high stilettos that would put Sebastian's own to shame, of course.

She sat down next to him on the bench and gripped his arm to hang off of him, sharp teeth all the more obvious in her response, "Yes, I do, thank you for noticing! A C-cup, and totally worth the payment. And the new basement parts to match, if you're interested."

Sebastian didn't even have the inclination to shiver at the tone in the Reaper's voice, just lightly removing her red cherry lacquered grip from his chosen green jacket of the evening and sighing as the damn bells all around them went off, taking the initiative to raise his open hand and to prevent her from attempting to lay her rouged lips anywhere near his face, "I'm really not in the mood to kiss a lady, if it's all the same to you."

She seemed to waver on the fact that he'd had enough respect to call her a lady  _(nine damn months with this new perfect form and half of her damn coworkers still had trouble doing that; go figure)_  and then, reluctantly, backed off a little.

Big gold-green eyes seemed contemplative as Sebastian did indeed remove her arms from around his figure, but didn't move from his spot, his red tinged eyes fixed on the city skyline and his face not too different from that once upon a time when that yellow eyed demon had tricked the young Earl into believing Sebastian wasn't on his side. Stoic and yet also as emotional as a demon was likely to get.

Then she focused on the thing around his neck and did a double take.

"...Oh."

"Hm?"

"You're here to see the kid, aren't you?"

"Is he here?" Sebastian inquired, head having turned to properly face the redhead at the familiarity in her tone and the kind of pinched look on her face when she realized that of  _course_  the demon came to see the little one; there was no other real reason than food. Disappointing though it was.

"Yep, been around a lot since the last World War. Has a house to serve as a base nest, too. Though you probably won't find him there right now."

"Right now?"

"He likes to keep himself busy," she explained, weirdly helpful to Sebastian's ears, but maybe she remembered that he really didn't have much of a problem with hitting her if he was annoyed enough and didn't want to ruin her dress and makeup, "Last I heard, he was assisting the cops with some information about a rather large and violent forced prostitution ring in the East End. Seeing as he's so good at getting in and out of places like that without being seen, he'll most likely be finished and headed home around five in the morning... If he doesn't lose his temper and rip apart all the enforcers and the leaders, anyway."

The thought that such a statement  _couldn't_  be right crossed Sebastian's face and mind, Grell could see it for just a moment, before that same sad, dark look from the days he had to deal with Claude passed back over his face and he seemed...hesitant, before replying.

"...Do you have the address for this location?"

* * *

Sebastian would have liked to believe that the years, with Ciel's talent for cleverness and trickery and thinking one step ahead of basically everyone he'd ever met after that night in the fire and committing to contract with a demon such as Sebastian, the years would have treated Ciel well as far as becoming a demon was concerned...but dear, sweet dark entity of Hell's throne on a fucking crutch, the crow demon didn't expect that he'd remain so  _small_.

Worse yet, as he observed in his familiar form atop a telephone wire the violence of the inside of a building that seemed a hold over from the slums of the '50's, he found himself spotting Ciel quite easily moving from room to room, giving into that violent nature Grell had mentioned with such familiarity as to much Sebastian's stomach turn.

But Ciel wasn't being violent as any other demon on a wrathful tangent, not at all. He was actually being rather controlled in moving from room to room, careful to avoid the sight of the young women trying to get away from their oppressors in the confusion of a fire alarm having been pulled when Ciel had entered  _(there had been high pitched screaming from what could have been the penthouse, obviously a girl no older than ten, if that, and he'd been tired of waiting for the police after half an hour)_  and all the lights going out. And then Ciel had changed forms into something small enough that Sebastian couldn't see him below the window frames in the rooms he passed; breaking the doors and the women running, the constant flashing of guns going off, some bodies of henchmen thrown aloft out of the windows over five stories to the ground and the tell-tale flash of a red, glowing eye here and there with the smell of arterial spray on the wind.

The screaming from the police sirens finally put a bit of a halt to the women and young girls and some boys littering the street in their underclothes and thin robes that were never meant to stay on for more than a minute. The police calling for backup as Sebastian heard the final gunshot in the penthouse go off before a fat, disgusting looking man found himself attempting to fly, with nothing at all to show for it when he reached the ground with a thud not too unlike a piece of lumber being tossed into an undisturbed lake.

_'My, my, Bocchan, you've at least developed a little muscle, anyway.'_

He allowed the sharp teeth his beak could not help but come equipped with show as he cackled low and amused at the sight, looking back up to find not the demon that still appeared to be a barely passable pubescent climbing out of the building's window and jumping to an adjoining shit-hole with a barely held together roof; but a little black fox, smaller than average and covered with blood around the mouth and front paws scurrying from roof to roof.

The elder demon followed, slowly and without a wisp of sound after the shadow and bloodied paw prints, not as surprised as he should have been, perhaps, when the small creature with one eye dropped from the last building before a faded dirt trail leading into the woods and seemed to droop a little, shifting into the form of what could have been a very large dog or a very small wolf.

Though it seemed he could not maintain the form once he'd followed the trail for a stretch of two of three miles, nearly running faster than Sebastian's wings could carry without giving him away, and suddenly lurched to a stop on shaking limbs, panting until he changed once again.

Ciel Phantomhive, over a hundred years old and still rail-thin with slate hair fanned out to cover the right side of his face. Sebastian now able to more clearly pick out the differences since he's last seen him, as Ciel made towards a small river that emptied into a cluster of trees that formed a mere; tiny animals paying him no mind as he best to clean the blood from his person with still shaking hands.

Sebastian wanted him to stop shaking. He saw that in this form his young master  _(hah, after not seeing him in over a century and then barely being near him from a distance and already he was back to calling him young master as propriety in his days as a butler dictated; what the boy did to him, honestly)_  had no shoes on his feet, blue veins visible from where barely held together leggings allowed skin to show. The green coat he wore was at least two sizes too large and seemed to make him more pathetic in the dim light of not-quite early morning and illustrated his quivering sparrow bones as he pressed blood covered hands into ice cold water.

He could not stand how cold he looked and set himself to ground, taking form again on two legs and still silent as he made way over to the hunched over form.

Sebastian had many words he wanted to say, but no starting point and no reference to draw from since this had never happened before in his ancient life of stifling solitude and moments of fleeting joy, but it was made a little easier as he drew closer and found Ciel had a large, perhaps quite old Tench fish in hand, shaking fingers with nails too light and worrying to Sebastian gripping the struggling thing to bring it to his mouth.

Sebastian had to blink and try not to goggle like an idiot when Ciel removed an  _actual_  soul from the creature, its body going slack with the sound of rushing wind that all demons were familiar with and then Ciel humming lightly before holding it up and tossing it to the other side of the small body of water. A hawk that was waiting in a tree rushed from a branch and received it serenely as Ciel finished wiping the blood off of his face and breathed out a puff of air, speaking up at the trees with all the feeling he could manage in his exhaustion made more solid by his compounded, presumed, solitude.

He shut his one eye and spoke in jest to, maybe, the fish he'd just eaten, or the bird he'd just fed, "Happy New Year..."

"Indeed, young master."

He liked to think to count it as a win when Ciel did not jump out of his skin and bolt away. Or turn around, see him, snarl contempt and misery upon him and attack with sharp tooth and claw Sebastian could not help but know would actually hurt now.

He would like to think that he didn't flinch as hard as he did when Ciel did not get up and move too much to turn his one eye to look at him and ask, with the obvious despair and not wanting to hope that had been so prevalent in the youth that Sebastian knew him just out of that horrible cage, "...Are you real?"

The hug that was warm and solid and not so very different from when Sebastian had protected him so often from hitmen and nightmares was a better answer than words that might have been deemed false, absolute in absurdity, too, when he spotted the pendant at the other's throat and he almost seemed ready to shrink in on himself.

Sebastian could still easily wrap around him with very little effort.

* * *

Demons don't really know how to handle this emotion called sorrow, don't really know how to apologize and mean it; but for his Bocchan  _(his, his, his)_  Sebastian would try. Spend the rest of eternity making it up to him, if he had to.

**Author's Note:**

> Interesting piece of trivia: this is actually my longest one-shot to date. I have not seen all the episodes for the series, nor read all the books and yet, somehow, this monster came to being. Also, this fandom is a little aggressive, which I am not used to, so, fair warning, flames are not a good idea.


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